Wilson HC

I have a strong urge to hate on books all about cruel, petty, delusional, pompous, middle-aged windbags, but that's what Wilson is about and I don't hate it at all. It's truly something special, a cutting collection of vignettes set up like cheap midlife crisis one-liners but woven into something much more complicated. Although the tropes of the book are simple, the corner of hell Clowes has carved out for Wilson is well-suited to the bearded antagonist's snarky, egotistical banter. Wilson could have easily slipped into super-bleak character indulgences (and occasionally it toes that line) but instead it's true critiques are subtle and crafty and its dark wit shows you an abyss without pushing you in. In my head, Clowes' work has always been tied to David Lynch's films, mostly in the way detached mediocre normalcy is constantly being eroded by deep undercurrents of the bat-shit-craziness of being alive. Here, Clowes has taken his obnoxious, incorrigible scumbag of a character and through some alchemical magic shined that little shit into pure gold.-EF